Microsoft has yet to release the Spring Creators Update to Windows 10. We've been sitting here waiting with a story about the launch ready to go, and nothing. Now people are starting to talk.
Rumored to arrive on April 10 alongside Patch Tuesday, the Spring Creators Update, aka version 1803 aka Red Stone 4, is due to deliver …

....."When we talk about why we're upgrading the Windows 10 install base, why is that upgrade free? MS CFO asked during a meeting with Wall Street analysts. These are all new monetization opportunities once a PC is sold. Microsoft's strategy is to go low on consumer Windows licenses, hoping that that will boost device sales, which will in turn add to the pool of potential customers for 'Advertising'".....

....."CEO Nadella has referred to the customer revenue potential as 'lifetime value' in the past -- and did so again last week during the same meeting with Wall Street -- hinting at Microsoft's strategy to make more on the back end of the PC acquisition process. The more customers, the more money those customers will bring in as they view 'Ads'".....

Why the delay MS?

the answer is that it is probably a bigger pile of shite than other updates than previous updates and will probably bork millions more devices and the lawyers have finally seen sense and told them "No. Do not release this [redacted] until we say so."

Ok, so I'm dreaming but MS is just a distant dream to me so directly, I don't care. What I do care about are the ordinary users who will no doubt get well and truly shafted by this update.

The guy doing my bathroom at the moment is tearing what little hair he has left out because the last update stopped him printing invoices and quotes for new work. I'll be going to take a look at it when he's done later today. He's the sort of person that MS screws up not us, the readers of this fine site. We (probably) know enough to sort the issues but the like of him don't.

Never mind, the sales droids at PC-World will see a lot more people after a new computer in the next week or so because their old one no longer works. So there is a bright side... really... honest... (sic)

Mark Zuckerberg appearing before US Congress

Could it be Microsoft is rethinking all the telemetry you can't opt out of? Perhaps they don't want to take a similar beating over privacy? Maybe Nadella looks at Zuck and goes "I don't wanna be there"?

Re: Mark Zuckerberg appearing before US Congress

Given some of the toggle switches relating to Windows Update were found to be operating opposite to their shown switch position (in Anniversary Update), how many of Windows 10 Privacy settings are 'accidentially' doing the same?

Maybe MS decided to double check, make sure the Privacy toggles are really working as they should. There have been reports on twitter this week they aren't.

(No, scrub that thought - that's just not Microsoft).

I remember in early builds of Windows 10 insider how the laptop camera light would operate during setup. I'm sure Microsoft have collected a lot of 'loose data' from incorrect toggles over Windows 10 lifetime.

Meanwhile Investors cheered, and commentators said Zuk stood his ground! I'd like to believe in the possibility you're right. But it feels like we're are on a slow death march to Tech-Stasi. Look at these 2 journalistic pieces from the normally very 'pro-US' Irish media:

"Don’t share, don’t like, don’t download, don’t post unless you understand and are prepared to live with the consequences of your actions. Inform yourself about privacy settings and if you dislike the options or the results, then simply stop using an app, or better still, delete it.

The old hackneyed phrase, if you are not paying for an internet product, then you are the product, has a strong element of truth to it. As a result, if you want to help influence behaviour in the internet industry the only effective way you can do so is by withdrawing your trust and your data, which are the lifeblood of the tech industry.

And whatever happens, don’t take it for granted that tech companies, regulators or politicians have your back. Because if the last few days have proven anything, it is that they clearly don’t."

"we've had to sit on this Windows 10 Spring Creators Update headline for days"

Re: "we've had to sit on this Windows 10 Spring Creators Update headline for days"

Given MS never announced the 10th April and there isn't an RTM as such, MS technically haven't sat on anything.

But let's not get distracted from the MS data slurping methods being aggressively ramped up here in Windows 10, release on release, now everyone is sitting nicely on the sausage machine update conveyor belt, in which you can't jump off.

Re: "we've had to sit on this Windows 10 Spring Creators Update headline for days"

If any of this can be trusted, one can turn off some of the slurp in newer build. At the same time it's becoming more difficult to dispatch Cortana that creeps her way into tasks that never required connected search. I'm not particularly convinced by MS' intentions.

Re: "we've had to sit on this Windows 10 Spring Creators Update headline for days"

Have you used the insider preview of 1803?

I had been, but then the spare laptop I was running the Technical Preview on decided it would no longer even power on. Which is interesting in that the *prior* machine I had been running MSW10 TechPreview on *also* decided to no longer power on...

GDPR rights vs MS

I wonder what happens if/when someone (on May 26th) demands MS (a) hand over all the data they have on them (b) delete it, (c) never collects any more, (d) does not contact them for advertising purposes.

Does MS send them a complementary copy of Windows 95, freedos, or ubuntu?

Re: GDPR rights vs MS

GDPR still has to be enforced... Where are the governmental and regulator resources going to come from - Ireland?! ... I can tell you right now, the Irish-DPC is too busy hiding to give a **** about you and your request being met! They are a mere puppet for US Tech Giants, and a buffer between Government and Journalists etc! The ODPC knew Facebook data-sharing with Cambridge Analytica was illegal years ago. They tried to shut Schrems up! Don't get your hopes up. Just stop buying Win10!

Re: GDPR rights vs MS

Shadmeister - You mean what you posted is new to you? The first thing you should do anytime you use an app or program or Operating System is to check the privacy policy and check out what data they collect and see if you can block any of your data being sent. I have known about all the ways you can stop your computer from sending your data to Microsoft on Windows 10 since I started using Windows 10. You see, before I even started using Windows 10 I did some research on Windows 10 and found out Microsoft collects an awful lot of personal data and learned how to protect my private data being sent to Microsoft. I didn't see you mention the Microsoft Privacy Dashboard. There's a few things there you can delete your data that Microsoft has already collected. You can also see what Microsoft actually collected from your computer. In these days especially everyone needs to be aware of what they are sharing and to whom and to see if they can stop whatever it is whenever they use their computers or smartphones. I just cannot believe the amount of information, private information people actually share online. I haven't used Facebook in years. I don't see a need. I have deleted my profile and closed my account with Facebook. Facebook collects way too much data from its users and they share it with whomever they want. You can say but you can turn off certain things that Facebook collects. It doesn't matter. When you open an account with Facebook they know your name and email address and they also know your IP address every time you logon. Plus they know whatever you post or what messages you send and to whom. Nothing is totally private. Even this website.

Re: GDPR rights vs MS

"Microsoft Privacy Dashboard. There's a few things there you can delete your data that Microsoft has already collected." - the problem is that this requires one to create and login with MS account thus making it even easier for them to collect more personally identifiable information. Pointless if you've asked me. Once data is collected it's out of your reach, MS' word can be believed, or not.

Spring creators Edition

I've not booted into Windows on my home devices since it started failing CU patches post-

Meltdown/Spectre (Haswell refresh CPU), so I'm really not going to miss an update for something I don't use.

I have a question though what is a "Creators update" ? Why is it called that and why prefix with Fall/Spring without changing the "Creators" bit I was expecting a yearly name change, like "Imagineers update" or "Architectors update"

Since there are more Creationists in the US than Ecologists

I dunno. Maybe all the tall mountains on the west coast were spoken for. Or cute names like Bob, Bixly, Cortana, Stormy didn't work out so well.

You gotta feel sorry for this behemoth of a company that has continued in business at least 30 years too long. Anybody have a kid that says "I want to grow up to be a Microsoft Engineer"? Or IBM, Oracle.

Because the 'new' Microsoft under SatNad is all about maintaining the hipster image

Simple numbering such as SP1, SP2, perhaps appended by the year of release, is no longer cool for the folks at Redmond.

Other observable traits of the hipster Microsoft: SatNad seems to have raided Steve Jobs' wardrobe, back in the day Ballmer usually wore a suit during keynote presentations. Silly chummy messages in Windows 10 ("We couldn't complete the updates, Undoing changes." Who exactly is 'we'?) talking to the user like he/she is a child. Oh, and who can forget that logo change in 2012?

Re: cant win

Have an upvote, coming from me ... heaven must must be on fire ...

I was reading through all the comments and reached yours, the first sensible one. MS is not late, it has not given us a date, yet.

Besides, I am still waiting for the corporates to install the patch Tuesday stuff and report issues before I install that, so not a good time, imho, to release a Spring Kreator's Update (aka Bringer of Torture).

Brexit, again ? What has MS got to do with that ? And yes, I use Linux, also ...

Re: Antipodean edition?

Duh? As you well know the USA is the whole world. Every other country is just a fantasy made up to make the USA look bad. Their laws are global and Trump is 'The Leader of the Free World'. It's true, just ask any American.

Zzzzz

If

If they're making sure it all works well before they release it that's to the good. Previous updates have proven dodgy. Sometimes failing. Other times installing but failing to admit it's installed and trying over and over again..

Personally I'd be pleased if they just provided error messages that had useful information. There's something about an error message for a failed install that decodes along the lines of " installation failed to instal because there was a problem installing it..." that is somewhat infuriating.

Re: Win 10, the NEW Vista!

And I doubt many will get it

Given how windows update works these days, there will be many people who never get this update and will be languishing on old versions of windows 10 forever.

For example, I was trying to help a friend who owns a surface that is running windows 10 1607. Because of a firmware problem, the battery in this surface can't store its correct charge, so it will die if disconnected from power. Microsoft realized this and released a fix, but it can only be installed if the device is connected to power and has 40% or more battery. Because of the firmware problem, the battery never gets to 40%, so the problem can't be fixed. Because of the firmware not being up to date, large updates won't install. Because of security updates that are probably big deals, microsoft wants to install new big updates. The result being that the machine still won't function if not plugged in, and the update procedure would download the 3gb windows 10 image every day and fail to install it, only to repeat the next day. I was unable to get the firmware fixed so the updates and battery would work, so the only solution I had was to tape the power adapter into the socket and kill windows update so that it at least wouldn't waste bandwidth downloading the same image. This using microsoft's hardware and software. Maybe they could use these extra days to fix that

Revamped user interface

Re: Revamped user interface

Well, the Win 7 start menu needed some improvements. It's just that the Win 8.x fiasco and the ghastly Win 10 fudge has made us forget it's faults. The 7 start menu needed to be made easier to organise for a start. Instead they made it hard-to-impossible. F***ing idiots.

I can't even get 1709 to install on my stick PC despite repeated attempts. And the failure doesn't give anything remotely resembling a useful error message. I need to find the time to wrestle with the shitty BIOS so I can convince it to boot off a Linux thumb drive and make the machine actually useful again.

It's Friday 13th...

Windowa s Gi-Go

Yes, well perhaps this 'upgrade' will fix the bugs introduced by the last 'upgrade' that screwed around with my wireless keyboard and mouse settings and not cause my wi-fi connection to bob up and down like a yo-yo like the last one.

Windows 7 had its shortfalls, but at least it used to work and not change my system settings.